This happened to me 4 or 5 years ago. I worked for a big warehouse retailer, the one that likes the color blue. I was working part time at the service desk while working on my bachelor's. I was an associate who passed up regular offers to be a front end supervisor and I had made it clear on several occasions that I did not want to be promoted as I was planning on leaving when I graduated.
There was one associate at the desk that I really got along with. We were the exact same level, both of us were associates. One night we are closing up and joking about taking shots or having drinks. My assignment manager pulls me aside later that night and proceeds to tell me that I'm better than other associates, I'm not on the safe level and I cannot joke with them.
This guy actually believed that bullying people for profit made him better than the other people we worked with and he thought I would buy into it as well. I was pretty shocked and nodded my way through the conversation. It was wrong on so many levels. First off I was an associate joking with someone on the same level as me. Second, f%$k that line of thinking, that is where social injustice begins.
He was let go within a year of that conversation and I left when the public got too shitty during the pandemic. I have since graduated and I work for a much better company now.